California District Proposal

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by jpetito

Hi Liam Fay of W.A.R. Lords- Your point two that the "…regional level ambience…" is the high point of a kid's FRC career is germane-- the consistently winning teams do see the points gathering thing as a stepping stone. The teams working out of the janitor's closet on the cafeteria benches in January want to go to something Big, Big, to make all their sacrifices and unplesantnesses worthwhile. What with our fabulous weather, Jan/Feb on the cafe benches still means you're working your robot in mittens and ushankas. Sponsors walk into 5k people at a Regional, shouting and screaming, get impressed and write checks.

Sponsors can walk into a lot of people at District Championship events, see them shouting and screaming, get impressed, and write checks. They can also go to at least twice as many events as previously offered in the area if the shouting and screaming isn't for them.

Originally Posted by jpetito

EricH- Add to the volunteer conundrum another, which may be a Left Coast mentality: Some school site admin are totally bought into understanding what this kind of education means, and give their sites to teams for only janitorial fees. The majority (anecdotal, but research nonetheless) look at the rolling junk on the playing floor and only see rolling junk; they've an inability to break out of intellectual tunnel they've made for themselves to grasp what's going on. * They are happy to have a kid cite FRC on the college app, but care little for the day to day wrenching and welding and bandaids. Thus kids and mentors delegated to working out of janitor's closets or having to lease space in the community (at market rates).

This is a pretty good argument for districts.

Originally Posted by jpetito

Pits have a dynamic that gets fragmented if you put four teams here, eight over there, a couple next to the playing field, some in some other building. We want teams to rub shoulders and be Graciously Professional while so doing, with veterans pulling up the newbies.

Now I have heard it all, I think. This was an existing problem at a regional in southern California.

Originally Posted by jpetito

Perspective at the doer level is all. The teacher/mentor/parent/volunteer pool is devoted. I/we want kids to get out of school and be a success at whatever. I'd invite District proponents to play a season with us to get a grasp of the perspective (great perspective smurfgirl!), and fit your good ideas into our socioeconomic/cultural/geographic template--good minds solve big problems--I admit to a crushed viewpoint and tunnel vision as much as the next guy/gal, and like critiques from our vision point.

That sounds like a great offer! I'd love to take 422 to San Diego or Anaheim. Unfortunately the regionals in California are packed with teams from the state so much already that it is really hard to get out there and play a season with you. SoCal teams are occasionally shipped off to Nevada or Arizona for a second play; I imagine district model teams will not fare much better.